“We are at a loss to find what exactly is offensive about our display,” Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the temple, told Raw Story. “For a display to qualify as ‘grossly offensive’ the offending elements should have the quality of being readily obvious to most disinterested viewers. This is not the case.”

The 5-foot-by-5-foot poster the Satanists hoped to display showed an angel falling into hell along with a message reading, “Happy holidays from the Satanic Temple.”

The Satanic Temple is now considering its legal options as it awaits clarification from Florida officials.

“We would like to get further clarification from the DMS regarding what exactly is offensive, and see if we can’t work with them to come to some type of agreement,” Greaves told Raw Story. “It seems unthinkable that the DMS should be presuming negative value judgements upon our very religion itself, engaging in blatant viewpoint discrimination, so we must assume that there is something tangible about the content of the display that is demonstrably astray from established community standards.”

“The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people,” the group on its website. “In addition, we embrace practical common sense and justice. As Satanists we all should be guided by our conscience to undertake noble pursuits guided by our individual wills. We believe that this is the hope of all mankind and the highest aspiration of humanity.”

About the Author

Eric W. Dolan has served as an editor for Raw Story since August 2010,
and is based out of Sacramento, California. He grew up in the suburbs
of Chicago and received a Bachelor of Science from Bradley University.
Eric is also the publisher and editor of the psychology news website PsyPost. You can follow him on
Twitter @ewdolan.